South Asian American literature makes readers confront the triangulation of British and US empires in processes of South Asian racialization in the United States, forcing one to think about the United States and Britain as aligned and competing empires. South Asian American literature causes one to consider how the United States assumes the imperial mantle by calling attention to the connections between subcontinental nationalisms. The first so-called subaltern diaspora of the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries was made up primarily of slaves, indentured laborers, and other kinds of workers to Indian Ocean islands, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the West Coast of North America. South Asian diasporic literature in the Americas is one of the most cohesive hemispherically oriented diasporic literatures within Asian American studies. The creative work of South Asian American literature's most prominent author Jhumpa Lahiri offers a barometer of the evolving perceptions of South Asian American literature.